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Haven't found anything regarding a new No-Man album. But, doesn't mean it won't happen

Trollheart

Decent rocker, sadly defunct now


Artiste: Starbreaker
Nationality: American
Album: Starbreaker
Year: 2005
Label: Frontiers
Genre:AOR/Melodic Rock
Tracks:
Die for you
Lies
Break my bones
Crushed
Days of confusion
Transparent
Light at the end of the world
Cradle to the grave
Underneath a falling sky
Turn it off
Dragonfly
Save yourself
Days of confusion (Acoustic)
Chronological position:Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Good solid AOR with a real hint of metal to it.
Best track(s): Lies, Days of confusion, The light at the end of the world, Turn it off
Worst track(s): Dragonfly
Comments: A side project for TNT singer and frontman Tony Harnell, Starbreaker had just the two albums, this being their first. It starts off a bit confusing with various instruments going, almost like an orchestra tuning up, but quickly develops into a rocking opener with a great hook, and Die for you starts us off on the right foot. Sitar-like guitar metamorphoses into a blazing solo from Primal Fear's Magnus Karlsson, and there's a certain Thin Lizzy sound to his fretwork on Lies, with some effective keyboards added by him too.

There's definitely a harder edge to this short-lived band/project than other AOR acts I've heard, and I'd place them more at the metal side of things than melodic rock really, but then with the singer from TNT and the guitarist from Primal Fear that's not really that big a surprise. Add in the drummer from TNT, who has also played with Yngwie Malmsteen, and it's a pretty heavy troupe you've got here. That said, this album is chock-full of hooks and memorable melodies, so I'd put it above the average metal album, where in some cases melody and structure can be sacrificed in favour of speed, power, noise or all three.

Starbreaker can pull back on the throttle too though, as they do in the semi-ballad Days of confusion, a song we get two versions of, with the closer an acoustic offering. Very powerful and dramatic but featuring really sensitive and engaging piano work from Karlsson, it's one of the standouts certainly. There's some real guitar virtuoso display here from the PF man, though it's Harnell's voice that controls proceedings, and man is it equal to the task. But then, you probably knew that anyway. Again we hear that tinkling piano in Underneath a falling sky, but it's hardly a ballad.

I have to say the instrumental Dragonfly is just totally overblown and self-indulgent, the only reason it gets onto the "worst tracks" list (the only one there, to be fair), and it sounds very Malmsteenesque to me (ie indulgent and overblown) but at least it does give drummer John Macaluso a chance to shine. Other than that it's the low point of an album which really has none. I pretty much like every track here, and I'll be listening to this album again at some point certainly.
Overall impression: Very impressed; sorry there were only two albums from this band.
Intention: I'll have a listen to the second album, then maybe check out TNT...

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Trollheart

Abandon all hope (of stopping listening to this album) all ye who enter here!


Artiste: Dante Fox
Nationality: British (English)
Album: Lost man's ground
Year: 2012
Label: Self-released?
Genre: AOR
Tracks:
Who stole the innocence
Go where your heart is
Secrets
I can't sleep
Lost man's ground
This world
Goodbye to yesterday

Chronological position: Third album
Familiarity: None
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Brilliant AOR record
Best track(s): This world, I can't sleep, Goodbye to yesterday
Worst track(s): Not a one.
Comments: Sometimes the old sayings are true, and in this case it certainly is correct that good things often come in small packages. The only thing I find annoying about this album is that it's so short, only seven tracks in total (eight if you count the radio edit of the title track, which I don't) but every single one is gold. With a very eighties-style acapella vocal start, Who stole the innocence opens proceedings and it's pure AOR Heaven, like the best of Heart and Pat Benatar, even though the verse melody is closely modelled (whether intentionally or not I don't know) on Dio's Rainbow in the dark. It really gets you in the mood and vocalist Sue Willets has a strong and pure voice, perfect for AOR edging into heavier rock at times.

Dante Fox certainly give some older, more established AOR bands a run for their money with this mini-album, as songs like Go where your heart is, with its hooky keyboard melody and tough guitar, and the soft ballad Secrets show, and seem to only hint at the potential of this band who were unknown, at least to me, up until now, despite apparently having two albums prior to this. One of the best tracks on the album, I'm reliably informed, originally appears on their debut album, and if so I need to check it out, post-haste, as I can't sleep encompasses everything great about Dante Fox: great melodies, powerful guitar, punchy singing, rolling keyboards and a hook that won't let you go no matter how hard you wriggle. The sort of song you'd expect to come from the pen of Desmond Child or Diane Warren. Perfect.

The title track comes across more as a progressive rock piece, with some pretty heavy guitar from Tim Manford almost pushing it into metal or at least hard rock territory, but retaining the AOR sensibilites that have so far characterised the album. There's a great anthemic feeling to it too, a real fist-in-the-air song, while the total standout for me comes in This world, which deserves to be a huge international hit, but of course won't. It's got the kind of catchiness some bands can only dream of achieving in a song, with another somewhat dreamy, progressive intro and a certain sense of darkness about it, juxtaposed perfectly with an upbeat, hooky chorus.

Essentially then the album ends on Goodbye to yesterday. another ballad, and a very fitting closer with some lovely acoustic guitar and some fine vocal harmonies. There's also the radio edit version of the title track, but as you all know by now I generally tend not to include extended, edited, remixed or other versions of tracks already on the album, or bonus or additional tracks.
Overall impression: Completely blown away by how great this album is, considering I knew nothing about the band beforehand. Superb.
Intention: I'm already searching now for their first two albums!

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Trollheart

Buckethead may not be God, but he's up there beside him


Artiste: Buckethead
Nationality: American
Album: Electric sea
Year: 2012
Label: Metastation
Genre: Instrumental/classical
Tracks:
Electric sea
Beyond the knowing
Swomee swan
Point doom
El Indio
La wally
La Gavotte
Bachethead
Yokohama
Gateless gate
The homing beacon
Chronological position: Thirty-fifth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Where's the mad shredding? Hey, this is nice!
Best track(s): Swomee swan, La Gavotte, Yokohoma
Worst track(s): Negative on that one, son!
Comments: You can all laugh at me, but after suffering through Neal Schon's indulgence-fest "The Calling" recently I swore I would never listen to another guitar instrumental album, yet this one was on my ipod and I'd heard good things about Buckethead from among others, Mrd00d, so I decided to give him a chance. Truth to tell, I wasn't expecting much: I mean, how good can a guy who calls himself Buckethead and wears a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head (hence the name) be, really? To say I was stunned by what I heard is a total understatement. This album is full of gentle, introspective, almost classical (in some cases literally) music played by the guy on a succession of guitars, and yet despite there being nothing else but guitar music --- no keyboards, no percussion --- it never once flags and never sounds in the least boring. Mr. Schon, please take note!

Every track is great, and yet most of them while quite similar are very different. The title, and opening track, is a mixture of lovely acoustic and smooth electric guitar, while Beyond the knowing (apparently an instrumental interpretation of one of his earlier songs) is pure classical guitar played in a laidback yet intense way. I love the way this is such an intimate album that you can hear Buckethead's fingers sliding along the strings; there's no other instruments or heavy production to overshadow his playing, and you really do feel like he's almost in the room playing right beside you. Swomee swan, one of the standouts even if I don't know what the title means, leans a little more into the harder end of the spectrum while still remaining relatively calm and gentle, while Point doom has an almost medieval tint to it, before it takes off into some quite incredible displays of dexterity on the Spanish guitar.

There's a real sense of the Mexican and those old western cowboy style movies to El Indio and he even tackles good ol' Bach, not once but twice, with La Gavotte and the cleverly-named Bachethead, though essentially they're both pretty much the same piece of music, just played a little differently. I'm not that naive to think this is how all of Buckethead's music sounds: I know he works in various genres, and some of his albums could be not to my liking at all. But I'm definitely more open to listening to his music now than I was before I hit "play" here.
Overall impression: Surprised, delighted and much more impressed than I had expected to be. Blown away, in fact. Another four-cookie album!
Intention: I need to hear more... now!

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Unknown Soldier

Agree easily the weakest album put out by the band in their original line-up. The most interesting aspect of this album, is probably what we don't know! Prior to the initial recording of this album Ozzy had left the band and he was replaced by Dave Walker of Savoy Brown, also briefly with Fleetwood Mac as well. I'm certain the early material they did with Dave Walker would've been better than what ended up on the album. Ozzy of course decided to rejoin the band and refused to sing any of the songs they had already with Dave Walker!

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Yep, I read that and had this been a normal review like in my main journal I would have referred to it, as it's interesting and relevant. However the idea of "Bitesize", as you know, is to do short, concise reviews without going too deeply into the background of the album. Big disappointment though, other than "A hard road", and one track can't save an album, no matter how good it is.

It's a good point though: what were the original vocals like? Guess we'll never know. Bit mad that Ozzy rejoined and then left after this album. Guess that's ego for you: couldn't stand the idea of anyone else singing with the band. I heard he doesn't even rate Dio!

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Trollheart

Old school metal: hop on board!


Artiste: Devil's Train
Nationality: Unknown
Album: Devil's Train
Year: 2012
Label: Edel/Ear Music
Genre: Hard rock/Heavy metal
Tracks:
Fire and water
Devil's train
Roll the dice
To the ground
Forever
Sweet devil's kiss
Find new love
Room 66/64
Coming home
Yellow blaze
The answers
American woman
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Great harmonica to start off, then the guitars kick in and the ride begins!
Best track(s): Devil's train, Roll the dice, Sweet devil's kiss, Room 66/64, Coming home
Worst track(s): Nah, no passengers on this train, hombre!
Comments: Sometimes you just decide to try an album because the title is cool, yeah? And who would not be impressed by a metal band with a name like Devil's Train? The only real problem I have here is that I can't tie down an actual nationality for this brand new band: seems it's made up both of former members of Mystic Prophecy, who come from Germany, and Stratovarius, who are of course Finnish. Either way, they actually sound American, something of a common trait with many new metal bands coming up these days. Not a bad thing --- you can get a bit tired of the harsh German accent, let's be honest, and these guys sound, on this first outing, like they could give some of the bigger US bands a run for their money.

Others have commented that the band fall between the stools of hard rock and heavy metal, and indeed I'd agree. Were you to meet them in a bar, they'd probably be stretched out lazily across both, occupying both the bluesier, heavier end of the former with the cutting edge of the latter. With people like Jorg Michael and Jari Kaneulainen of Stratovarius and of course founder member and vocalist of Mystic Prophecy R.D. Liapakis in attendance, you probably know what to expect.

You'd be wrong.

Whereas both those bands practice essentially power/speed/thrash metal, Devil's Train hurtles along on rails of classic hard rock and the kind of metal typified by bands like Saxon and early Tygers of Pan Tang. There's a great bite in the guitar work of Laki Ragazas, and RD's vocals while not screaming definitely punch your face in, in the most enjoyable way possible. Power rockers like the title track, Roll the dice and Room 66/64 (see what they did there?) are pretty much the order of the day, and the pace hardly slackens at all right through the album. You really do feel like you're on a headlong ride to the sweetest hell imaginable!

There are the metal crunchers too, like To the ground and Yellow blaze, and if anyone thinks that the opening guitar riff from Forever sounds like Bryan Adams's Run to you, I agree, although this song is nothing close to that big rock hit. Great vocal performance from RD and soulful guitar from Laki, and there's almost a tinge of AOR to this, which is no criticism of Devil's Train, just shows how versatile they can be. They also get a superb anthem in Coming home as well as a ballad ... nah, just kiddin'! No slow song on this album. THIS train don't slow down for no-one, man!

Ain't that how we like it?
Overall impression: Powerful debut, blows some other major bands away and I reckon these guys have a really bright future ahead of them. If you like old-school hard rock mixed with some serious metal you better climb on board while there's still room! Already booking my ticket for the return trip!
Intention: Nothing I can do but wait for the next album, and keep playing this one.

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Trollheart

Needs a little bit more bite


Artiste: Texas
Nationality: British (Scottish)
Album: Hush
Year: 1999
Label: Mercury
Genre: Rock
Tracks:
In our lifetime
Tell me the answer
Summer son
Sunday afternoon
Move in
When we are together
Day after day
Zero zero
Saint
Girl
The hush
The day before I went away
Chronological position: Fifth album
Familiarity: "White on blonde"
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Continuing on...
Best track(s): Summer son, Move in, Saint, Sunday afternoon
Worst track(s): Not one
Comments: I only own the one Texas album; you'll no doubt be unsurprised to find it's "White on blonde", certainly their most successful in terms of commerciality, with five hit singles taken from it and heralding something of a renaissance and rebirth for a band who were, prior to that album, known for "I don't want a lover" and that was about it, outside of their fanbase of course. Now I enjoyed "White on blonde" very much indeed, but just never went any further with them. I loved the single "Summer son", which is on this album, the album itself the followup to "White", but I never made the decision to buy the album, can't tell you why.

Now I'm listening to it streaming, for the first time, and I have to say it sounds pretty damn fine. I really don't know Texas output prior to that big album, so I can't say if this one follows or deviates from their usual sound, whether "White" was a change in direction for them (though I think it may have been, introducing something more of a pop sound into their mostly harder rock songs) but this one certainly builds on the success and sound of that album, and it's almost a direct continuation of "White on blonde".

There's a great sense of summer about this album, and that's not just because of the hit single Summer son, because the opener and the next track both conjure up the same images, with a real boppy, almost light sound that's as easy on the ear as singer Sharleen Spiteri is on the eye. Seems like Texas found the winning formula with "White on blonde" that had been evading them for six years since their debut. Riding on the resurgence in interest in the band engendered by that million-selling album, "The hush" got to the number one spot again and gave the band two top ten singles.

Another thing they explored on the previous album was a great affinity for soul music, and here it is in evidence again, especially on songs like Sunday afternoon and When we are together. A lot of the album is lazy in the very best way, the sort of thing you throw on your ipod to take to the beach or the park; doesn't bear up to close scrutiny, the lyrics ain't that deep but damn is it good to listen to and chill out to. Of course, most of us could listen to Sharleen sing the phone book, and she's definitely the lynchpin of the band, but it would be unfair to label her as fluff, cos she really can sing, and make you listen. Pure honey.

There's hardly a bad track here. Move in is smooth as silk, while When we are together is pure motown soul, and there's even another little instrumental interlude as on the previous album. It's actually hard to pick out ballads, as much of the album is soft and laidback, but Saint is a little more relaxed than other tracks, with some really nice expressive soft guitar and tinkling piano, and the title track is dreampop at its best.
Overall impression: A great successor to "White on blonde", maybe a little too laidback without any real punchy tracks, but a great album nonetheless.
Intention: May dig further. Maybe.

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Trollheart

Warning! Could be habit-forming!


Artiste: Lacuna Coil
Nationality: Italian
Album: Dark adrenaline
Year: 2012
Label: Century Media
Genre: Progressive Metal
Tracks:
Trip the darkness
Against you
Kill the light
Give me something more
Upsidedown
End of time
I don't believe in tomorrow
Intoxicated
The army inside
Losing my religion
Fire
My spirit
Chronological position: Sixth album
Familiarity: "Karmacode"
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Didn't like this at first, but definitely grew on me
Best track(s): Give me something more, End of time, Intoxicated, My spirit, Losing my religion
Worst track(s): Nothing
Comments: Lacuna Coil are one of those bands I've heard of but not heard much from. The only album of theirs I've listened to all the way through is "Karmacode", and while I did enjoy that I wasn't impressed enough to seek out the rest of their catalogue. I bought this more to see really if they had improved much from that album. At first I didn't think so; initially this sounded very much like "Karmacode", but as I listened and let it wash over me the thing improved in leaps and bounds, to the point where I had no hesitation in pushing play again once it had run the once, and have listened to it several times since.

I like the combination of vocalists Andrea Ferro and Christina Scabbia. Unlike many acts that utilise this sort of setup Lacuna Coil don't really subscribe to the idea of having one sing the lead and the other join in at the chorus; the vocals seem to be shared equally and equitably between the two, resulting in a sound that, though it should really end up lost in the flood of similar bands, manages to stand out and be somewhat unique in flavour.

One other thing that characterises Lacuna Coil's music seems to be hard, banging guitar and a sense almost of anger in the lyrics, or if not anger then maybe passion. They certainly seem to throw themselves into their music, mind, body, heart and soul, and it comes through especially in tracks like the standout End of time and My spirit. They also avoid the trap many progressive/goth rock artistes fall into, of writing epic songs that are too long: only one track here is over four minutes, while the closer is the longest by far at almost six. On "Karmacode" they covered Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the silence", and there's another cover version this time out. They've chosen REM's Losing my religion and manage to breathe new life into the song. Perhaps a strange choice, given what they could have taken from Michael Stipe and the boys, but it's a great reinterpretation of the old classic.
Overall impression: Much better than I had originally thought it would be. Definitely improves with repeated listens.
Intention: May look further into this band now.

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Trollheart

Short, scary and certainly not sweet


Artiste: Theatres des Vampires
Nationality: Italian
Album: The Cult of Lamia
Year: 2012
Label: Aural
Genre: Goth metal
Tracks:
My winter storm
The lost grace
Apart
Chronological position: Ninth album
Familiarity: Ze-ro
Interesting factoid: This is shown as a movie soundtrack, but I can find virtually nothing about it.
Initial impression: Very cinematic, very dramatic, reminds me of Kamelot, Edenbridge, Within Temptation etc.
Best track(s): I wouldn't really try to pick out favourites when there are only three tracks. All very good though.
Worst track(s): See above.
Comments: As a fan of Anne Rice's vampire novels I couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out a band called Theatres des Vampires, but the album I chose, being their latest, is quite an oddity, even for them. First off it's apparently from a movie soundtrack, though I can't find out anything about the movie. Second, it's got a mere three tracks on it, and we're not talking two at twelve minutes or more, or anything. Total running time is just over ten minutes!

Mind you, they pour a lot into those ten minutes. Very epic, very dramatic, very effective. Great grinding guitars and some spooky keyboards with the sort of operatic female voice you expect from most of these bands and a growling, not quite gutteral (but nearly!) male voice accompanying her. You have to love the female singer's name --- Sonya Scarlet --- though the male voice I can't get any info on; both keyboard player and bass player, and indeed drummer, are all credited with backing vocals, but as I say there is very little information on this album so I can't confirm too much.

What I hear I like: very gothic, very dark without being black metal (which is apparently how TdV started out), quite progressive in places. Great guitar work allied to some laidback piano and of course violins, though probably made on the synth. Apparently they've just been banned from Venezuela for unknown reasons, which I assume is something to do with how they dress and the fact the sing about and act like vampires --- just shows you how difficult some people find it to separate fantasy from reality! They're not actually vampires, senor!

As for the album, I'd say it's a good if short introduction to this band; just a pity there's not enough tracks on it. Even most EPs have more than three...
Overall impression: Certainly live up to their name, if the lyrics are a little hard to make out at times.
Intention: I'm intrigued enough to go look for a few more of their (hopefully longer) albums.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018